An Alluvial Mine has been discovered within the grounds of Soul Food and it is opening for sturdy miners who know that to find creative gold you have to be prepared to dig deeply. These miners also know that there is gold to be found in the tailings and so they become expert gleaners who may find gold by taking a phrase and reworking it.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Ticket Stub Travel

Ticket Stub Travel:If I pressed these small paper passports here, against my third eyed, Mnemosyne Lady of Memory . . . one at a time . . . would you take me back . . . just for a moment?Simon & Garfunkle on two folding chairs in a spill of one yellow light, facing each other with two guitars. They sang out to the audience some of the time, but most of the time they sang as if they were singing to each other, old friends sat on their park bench like bookends . . . Creedence Clearwater Revival rocked the rafters and shook the stars down. We sat up on the boys shoulders, sang along and screamed until we were horse. Someone got excited had to call the state militia gotta move, playing in a traveling band, yeah . . . John Denver loved the audience, loved to preform, I saw him many times, he always gave off such vibes of complete love for what he was doing and affection for the people who were listening, I never saw another performer who had such a report with the audience. I haven’t got a ticket stub for the first time I saw him, because there were no tickets, it was in a coffee house in Denver before he was famous. We didn’t know who he was until later, just that he had a sweet voice, sang Peter, Paul and Mary songs (which were actually his) and, as always, just loved the audience, and talked of poems and prayers and promises and things that we believed in, how sweet it is to love someone how right it is to care, how long its been since yesterday, what about tomorrow? What about our dreams and all the memories we share? . . . I saw Crosby, Stills and Nash in 1969. I saw Crosby, Stills and Nash in 1989, it was pretty much the same show. A great show, quite remarkable, old David with his new liver and all. They played “Our House” and said, “Here you go kids, this is the song your mom lost her virginity to.” There I sat with Lezlie on one side and April on the other, thinking, close but no cigar, David my friend. Old Graham Nash could sure write a sweet song though. I'll light the fire, while you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today. Staring at the fire for hours and hours while I listen to you play your love songs all night long for me, only for me . . . The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band played just at dusk after a long day of blue grass music in a meadow on the side of a green mountain. I was sunburned in my sundress and tired and very happy. We drank Sangria while a sunset split the sky behind us and the band played their brand of cajun-cowboy-country something or other than no one else could ever duplicate. Winnie the Pooh doesn't know what to do, got a honey jar stuck on his nose. He came to me asking help and advice, And from here no one knows where he goes. Steepenwolf was nearly three hours late, amazingly they held the venue for three hours and amazingly every body sat there and waited. Everyone in the whole place was stoned on second hand smoke by the time he showed up whether they were smoking themselves or not. Steepenwolf, he felt bad about showing up late so he played an extra long time. The concert didn’t get over until about three in the morning. I like smoke and lightning, Heavy metal thunder, Racin' with the wind, And the feelin' that I'm under, Yeah Darlin' go make it happen, Take the world in a love embrace, Fire all of your guns at once, And explode into space . . .I would like to go back for a moment, Lady, and see Cats or a Chorus Line . . . no, I would like to look down at the faces of the little girls beside me watching with big eyes and their mouths slightly open. Memory - all alone in the moonlight. I can smile at the old days, I was beautiful then. I remember the time I knew what happiness was. Let the memory live again. Kiss today goodbye, And point me t'ward tomorrow. We did what we had to do Won't forget, can't regret What I did for love What I did for love. The time we saw Mikhail Baryshnikov live. Our tickets at Red Rocks had been so good, but it rained. When we had to move to the inside arena in Denver we were around a corner and were looking sidewards at the stage. I was very disappointed until I realized that because of how far over we were, we could see into the wings. We got to watch Mikhail Baryshnikov warm up and do his between number hold-warmings all the way through the show, it was the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen . . . I saw Neil Diamond in concert with a backup band of about sixty and a huge choreographed light show with fireworks that went off on cue as he punched his arm in the air. I saw him another time sing the same songs sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar in a single spot. I vastly preferred the stool in the single spot. Mnemosyne Lady of Memory, take me there. You are the sun, I am the moon, You are the words, I am the tune, Play me . . . I have seen Jerry Jeff Walker in so many places I can’t remember them all. I will see him again as soon as he gets close enough, for he is, as far as my husband is concerned, the only reason for going out of the house. I will go gladly. I’ve got a feeling something that I can’t explain, like dancing naked in that high hill country rain . . . I have seen Gordon Lightfoot everywhere I could possibly manage for thirty years. I have driven long distances to reach a venue where he was playing, I would do it again. I probably won’t have the chance, however. He has been very ill, he nearly died a year or so ago and will probably not tour again. But I have a lot of ticket stubs and a lot of memories and CDs where his voice comes to me as familiar as sweet, soft rain . . . The Minstrel of the Dawn is here to make you laugh and bend your ear. Up the steps you’ll hear him climb all full of thoughts, all full of rhymes, listen to the pictures flow, across the room into your mind they go . . . You know, I was camping with my sister’s family in New York during Woodstock. I was sixteen. We were about thirty miles away, but we missed the whole thing. Who camps in New York? It was one of the dumbest things I ever did. My brother-in-law who knew nothing about camping had us out in somebodies field in an unsealed tent that leaked when it rained. It rained. I woke up with my long hair floating in a puddle next to my face. The next day, after covering him with mosquito repellant didn’t work, I zipped the baby into my hooded sweat shirt to keep him from being eaten alive. My sister was pregnant and we had to get up and go to the outhouse through the wet fields in the pouring rain like big bats in huge ponchos six, eight, twelve times during the night. I suspect the people over in Yasgur's field were having the same sort of troubles, but they were there for a reason beyond trying to ‘camp out’ in New York, for heavens sake. Besides they were all stoned and we weren’t. We also didn’t get to hear Janis Joplin live, or Jimi Hendrix or Blood Sweat and Tears or The Who. By the time we had finally talked her pig-headed husband into going to a motel to dry out, the rain had stopped, Woodstock and history had begun only thirty miles away. We didn’t care, we were finally dry. I came upon a child of god, he was walking along the road, and I asked him, where are you going, and this he told me: I’m going on down to Yasgur’s farm, I’m going to join in a rock ’n’ roll band, I’m going to camp out on the land, I’m going to try an’ get my soul free.We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves, back to the garden.

2 Comments:

"Winnie the Pooh doesn't know what to do, got a honey jar stuck on his nose. He came to me asking help and advice, And from here no one knows where he goes."-->Oh wow, I know that song! Its one of my all-time favourites... just the simplicity of it.